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1955 in The Sane Society . In the modern world, he argued, even free societies could be insane, or organized on a pathological basis that undermined the fulfillment of truly humanistic values. At the end of the Middle Ages, “man discovered nature and the individual, . . . laid the foundations for the natural sciences and developed humanistic ideals that combined the moral conscience of the Judeo Christian tradition with the intellectual conscience from the Greek tradition.” But, in recent centuries, technological and industrial gains, rather than advancing those ideals, had subverted them. “In building the new industrial machine,” Fromm explained, “man became so absorbed in the new task that it became the paramount goal of his life.” Human energies, “which once were devoted to the search for God and salvation, were now directed toward the domination of nature and ever-increasing materialcomfort.” As mechanization dramatically advanced these material goals, “man himself became a part of the machine, rather than its master.” Contemporary societies, whether totalitarian or capitalist, organized everything efficiently, and everyone was to fit in like “a cog in the machine.” In such societies, Fromm wrote, “happiness becomes identical with consumption of newer and better commodities.” But affluent Americans typically became quickly bored with their material things. So the rates of alcoholism and suicide in America were among the highest in the world, and escapist entertainments were everywhere. Modern societies promoted short-term “happiness,” but they did not cultivate truly humanistic lives characterized by relatedness, creativity, individuality, loving relationships, reason, and “a frame of orientation and devotion.”
    The commoditization and objectification of modern capitalism thus produced, to use two of the most popular terms of the day, “alienation” and “conformity.” The idea that capitalism led to the alienation of humans from their true selves went back to Karl Marx, but Fromm argued that Marx entirely missed the irrational side of humans. Furthermore, contrary to Marx, Fromm said that in highly industrialized societies alienation was rampant regardless of who controlled the means of production. In America, the widely noted conformity illustrated how widespread alienation was in a consumerist society. In the Soviet Union, conformity might be imposed from above, but in the United States it was voluntary. Vast numbers of Americans chose to eat tasteless and non-nourishing white bread and to drink Coca-Cola because these products were the most effectively advertised and marketed. The new suburbs,with rows of similar houses, likewise illustrated the leveling of tastes. The new suburbanites typically said they did not want to “stick out” too much. Conformity to whatever one’s neighbors did was the new authority. Psychological problems had become matters of “adjustment” to conventional norms.
    Fromm, ever the optimist about human potentialities, did not think it was too late to change. Declaring that time was short, he concluded with a sermonic peroration: “We are in reach of achieving a state of humanity which corresponds to the vision of our great teachers; yet we are in danger of the destruction of all civilization, or of robotization. A small tribe was told thousands of years ago: ‘I put before you life and death, blessing and curse—and you chose life.’ This is our choice too.” 5
    Fromm appealed to American audiences in part because he was a moralist who adopted the classic American sermonic form of the jeremiad, a lament for a lost golden age. 6 Fromm identified the Renaissance as this ideal time, a time when Judeo -Christian moral consciousness combined with Greek respect for intellect and when modern science was emerging. Although he criticized the